The countless photo sessions in the park were followed by feasting and dancing until dawn by the mountains. A glimpse of a wedding in rural South Africa.

It’s a long weekend in South Africa and a childhood friend, Letlhogonolo Kedijang, is getting married in Zeerust, a dusty town in the country’s mountainous North West province, 240 kilometers from Johannesburg.
After an early start and a four-hour road trip, we finally arrive in rural Gopane, 47 kilometers from Zeerust. We are extremely early and ravenous, and the place is downright rural but these are no deterrents.
We have driven all the way to witness our friend’s nuptials. But we can’t ignore the rumbling in our tummies.
The boys decide to go to a local Buy-and-Braai, a butchery where the meat is cooked on the fire as you wait and watch. I stay back at Gopane and document the groom’s preparations with my camera. For a start, there are no modern bathtubs or showers here – you use a bucket filled with water to wash up.
Preened and ready, it’s time to hop into one of the cars that make up the convoy to the bride’s home. We are late and I am told our destination is just around the corner, when it’s actually behind one of the mountains.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2018/03/07/big-fat-nigerian-wedding/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Big Fat Nigerian Wedding</a>
The cars are speeding and I am jittery, wishing there are speed-cameras or speed humps to slow them down. The scenes whiz by – dry land, sheep, chicken and grazing cows. There’s no oncoming traffic for miles on end.
Finally we arrive. A mountain away, what awaits us is singing, dancing and ululation. The groom leads the way as he walks uphill on the gravel road to the bride’s home to be accepted by her family.
I photograph their every move; he is accepted and she is taken. They look lovely in outfits that are a fusion between traditional and western; a trend I have been noting at most African weddings, not just in the cities, but in the countryside too.
Another convoy – a larger one this time – leaves for the local park, presumably a botanical garden, for the wedding photos.
Both sides of the family and their extended families are here. This is a staple in black South African culture – photos with the newlyweds amid flora and foliage.
After endless photographs with more than a hundred guests at the park, the couple leave in a white BMW convertible to the bridal home for the ceremony and grand lunch. I can finally rest and hand my time-worn camera to a friend eager to take over.
All the formalities are done, and the newlyweds are dancing away. More neighbors join, the ululating and singing get louder, and the band takes over.
The party has just begun.
<div id="attachment_37633" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37633" class="wp-image-37633 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SIA-499-1024x686.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="496" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SIA-499-1024x686.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SIA-499-300x201.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SIA-499-600x402.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SIA-499-768x514.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SIA-499.jpg 1356w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />Singing, dancing and Ululation at a wedding in North West. Photo by Motlabanna Monnakgotla.</div>
This is when we decide to stay on and not drive back to Johannesburg.
We continue to dance on the gravel, and the young couple open a circle for guests to challenge them at the dancing, a practice popular in black culture. The sun has set and the moon is out, and so are we.
It’s Monday morning, the birds are chirping, and the gents are snoring.
We wash our faces and head back home. Before leaving, we are gifted a bottle of whiskey as a token of appreciation.
We save it for later.
We make our first stop-over at a supermarket for a breakfast of chicken and bread. We open the boot of the car to double as a table. Locals can tell we are from Johannesburg.
We scorch the road again to music, until four hours later, we see a sign that says ‘welcome to Gauteng’.
After all the fun and frolic at a traditional African wedding, home beckons and duty calls in the modern commercial capital that is Johannesburg.
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SIA-952

Tales From An African Wedding

The small-town designer dressing up the rich and famous.

Matome waga Seshoka wants to take African haute couture to the world.
I meet him at his studio in the leafy suburb of Northcliff in Johannesburg. On this Monday afternoon, everything is running behind schedule. First, I am slightly late for the interview, and then, the model is delayed by an hour and the makeup artist has the wrong call-time.
Delays have always played a big part in Seshoka’s entrepreneurial journey.
He came to Johannesburg 14 years ago to study credit management at Technikon Witwatersrand, (TWR), now called the University of Johannesburg.
“It was difficult for my mother to understand this whole fashion thing. She questioned how fashion can be a career. Where we are from, you have to be a teacher, a doctor, or one of those careers. So I went to study credit management,” says the proud Sepedi-speaking designer.
Seshoka says he disliked it. He dropped out three years in. Although delayed, he swapped it for an education in fashion and has never looked back.
<div id="attachment_37600" style="width: 693px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37600" class="wp-image-37600 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Antherline-842-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="683" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Antherline-842-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Antherline-842-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Antherline-842-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Antherline-842-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Antherline-842-768x1151.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Antherline-842.jpg 1366w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" />Matome-waga Seshoka with model, Tholakele Mutjideni, in his studio in Northcliff Johannesburg. Photo by Motlabanna Monakgotla.</div>
<blockquote>“Straight out of school, I started my business. The first few years were a bit hectic, now things are starting to look up,” says Seshoka.</blockquote>
Born and raised in Ga-Matlala, a rural area in Limpopo, 370km from Johannesburg, Seshoka has defied all odds to build a successful fashion brand and dress the who’s who of the entertainment industry.
He named it Antherline Couture, after his mother. She raised three boys as a single parent.
It wasn’t easy. Seshoka had to walk about 45 minutes to school every day.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entrepreneurs/2018/05/07/from-football-to-fashion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: From Football To Fashion</a>
At the beginning of his journey, he says he didn’t know where to specialize. He started off doing everything, from street wear to menswear, until he fell in love with African print and haute couture. At the time, African-inspired wedding gowns were in demand. He grabbed the fabric with both hands.
“When I was doing my third year, I received an order for a December wedding. The client saw my work at the Sew Africa fashion show. By the time I graduated, I already had an order. It was a quite a big order and ended up having to ask people that I went to school with to help me, so I hired them. By the time it was done, I had a startup.”
The job paid Seshoka $2,805, enough to buy three sewing machines, one overlocking machine, pay the deposit and rent for a shop and staff salaries for two months.
Kamogelo Rankoko was one of his first employees.
“We were still struggling a little, we used a domestic machine and it wasn’t strong enough for the kind of work we were doing, but we got the wedding done, and they were happy,” says Rankoko.
After this exciting job, more delays. The next three years were the hardest. There were no clients and pockets were empty.
“I ended up having to look for a job, lecturing fashion in parts of Gauteng for a year. With my salary, I could cover rent and staff salaries, because [earlier], I would come back and the lights would be off or the doors would be locked because I didn’t pay rent. If there wasn’t a plan, there wouldn’t be a plan because I was the plan,” says Seshoka.
The big break came when he got his first celebrity client, Tokelo Rantie, a South African national and international football player.
“I remember my first celebrity wedding, I did Tokelo Rantie, then I did Sello Maake kaNcube’s wedding. That’s when people started knowing about us. From there forth, I started doing celebrity weddings,” he says.
The brand blossomed and everybody wanted to work with him.

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The business grew through word-of-mouth and nine years in, it has over 37,000 followers on Instagram and his clients have been named Durban July’s best dressed celebrities for the last four years.
His client list is rich with local and international stars such as Anthony Hamilton, Kenny Lattimore, Oleta Adams, Julius Malema, Nhlanhla Nciza and Khanyi Mbau.
“I met Matome through a friend a year ago; ever since I met him, I have been very loyal to him and he is the only one that dresses me for the red carpet. Matome is one of the people who believed in me when everybody thought I wasn’t big enough of a star to be dressed by them. But he welcomed me into his arms. So it’s Matome or nothing,” says Motsoaledi Setumo, a South African soapie star.
Seshoka’s career may have encountered delays but there is no stopping this small-town lad with international dreams.
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Antherline-876

Taking African Haute Couture To The World

For the many seniors in prison, the sun has already set on their lives. But beyond the forbidding grey walls of their damp cells, what rehabilitation and opportunities await them in society?

The prison walls are so high even the sun does not want to come in. The stinking corridors and cells are dark and damp; the cold, bitter world that is prison has been their home for years. In most cases, it is poverty that has pushed them to crime. There is punishment, and in some cases, repentance.
But what after life in prison? Do the state and society offer opportunities for mainstreaming senior convicts? They are taught skills at these correctional centers but how do they use them in the sunset years of their life?
I speak to three senior former convicts who served their life sentences. They find society forbidding and unforgiving, but in some cases, have moved on leading productive lives.
<div id="attachment_37504" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37504" class="wp-image-37504 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-853-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="494" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-853-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-853-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-853-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-853-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-853.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />Themba Mkhize. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
Themba Mkhize, 68, is back in his home in Zola, in the historical township of Soweto in South Africa. He was sentenced to 42 years in 1996 for murder and robbery in KwaZulu-Natal. He was 48 at the time.
During his stay in prison, Mkhize fell sick and was taken to a prison closer to specialist doctors; he was told he was going to die.
“I thought to myself, before I die; let me move closer to my family. I was moved to Johannesburg Correctional Services and that’s where I finished my sentence,” says Mkhize.
Mkhize tells me about his experience in prison and the prevailing gangsterism.
“In jail, it’s fights. Every year, there’s a fight between the numbers gangs. You can’t tell anyone that it’s safe inside [in jail]. I then formed a group to fight these gangs; it was a success because we had professional fighters in the group. It was then that these gangs would ask to be moved to other prisons because we would give them hiding. This was until one of the gang members was beaten and died in hospital,” he recalls.
Mkhize served 11 years and eight months in prison and is on parole. While in prison, he spent most of his time doing electrical work, fixing televisions and radios among other things, to earn an income. After release, Mkhize struggled to find employment and solely relies on a pension grant of R1,700 ($114) a month.
Mkhize’s eight children left him after his arrest. His is currently living with his mother and girlfriend.
“Coming out as a senior citizen has affected me a lot. People look at you strangely; you are a thief, someone that can’t be trusted. Some fear me because I killed a policeman. Even my family, some don’t like me. Prison is not okay. But now that I’m old, I don’t care about a lot of things,” he says.
He joined a rehabilitation center in Soweto, but stopped attending it because he felt it wasn’t doing much to help ex-convicts.
<div id="attachment_37512" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37512" class="wp-image-37512 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-766-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="494" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-766-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-766-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-766-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-766-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-766.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />Simon Maqaqa. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
Five kilometers away, I visit Simon Sindile Maqaqa at his home in Dobsonville, Soweto. He is 52 years old and was also arrested for murder and robbery in 1998 and sentenced to life. He was released in 2013 on parole.
“After the parole board let me out into society, the community was okay with me and they were close to me. Later, they started treating me strangely and stigmatizing me. If a crime happened around the area, I would be the first suspect,” says Maqaqa.
He joined a program for convicts called Nacham (meaning ‘repent’ in Hebrew) that helped offenders fit into society.
<blockquote>“Inside prison, I loved woodwork. I went to school and did furniture-making and spray-painting and got my certificate in 2015. [But] when I try registering a company, I fail,” he says.</blockquote>
He goes on to say that the government does not offer enough opportunities for ex-convicts like him.
“They monitor you for 24 hours and let you out for good behavior, but once you are outside, the same government suppresses you.”
Maqaqa started a small business selling sweets and cigarettes after his release. With the money he saved, he built two rooms and is renting them out.
“I built them with my own hands because I also studied construction inside prison,” he says.
But there are success stories too.
Fifty-year-old Collin Khumalo from KwaZulu-Natal is a former prisoner currently living in Johannesburg, and he employs more than 200 people.
<div id="attachment_37510" style="width: 547px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37510" class="wp-image-37510 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-133-537x1024.jpg" alt="" width="537" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-133-537x1024.jpg 537w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-133-300x573.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-133-600x1145.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-133-157x300.jpg 157w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-133-768x1466.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/senior-133.jpg 1073w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 537px) 100vw, 537px" />Collin Khumalo. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
I call him and our conversation is engaging. God changed his life, he says.
Khamalo started shoplifting at the age of 14. In 1988, he moved to Johannesburg and continued with his nefarious activities.
“We committed fraud, and then moved to house-breaks, then robbery. It was like a small gang terrorizing the affluent suburbs of Johannesburg. It was then that we moved to cash-in-transit heists, until 1995, when I got arrested for murder, robbery and possession of a firearm and ammunition,” he says matter-of-factly.
In 1997, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and an additional 44 years.
While inside, Khumalo was angry he didn’t have a proper upbringing – his parents were non-existent to him. He didn’t know what the purpose of his life was. He soon became South Africa’s most notorious prison gang member and fought everyone. Khumalo was promoted from rank to rank and moved from prison to prison.
<blockquote>“In 2002, I was sent to a private prison in Venda. That is where my conscience and God started talking to me. I was listening to a man preach… That was the turning point in my life,” he recalls.</blockquote>
Khamalo broke the gangsters’ prison code by leaving a prison gang; he was promised death by all gangs for repenting.
He made a decision to get some form of education that same year and realized his purpose. By 2003, he started goading other inmates to stay away from gangsterism.
“In 2004, I started a program called Fear Free Life (inspire and encourage other men to lead better lives and become better fathers and husbands). When it started, the message was not to be vigilantes. It grew to be a very big thing, I registered it in 2009. By 2011, I was still in prison but it was given a quality assurance by the City Of Johannesburg to run the program in the whole Johannesburg Correctional Services,” he says.
In 2011, the then Minister of Correctional Services, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, announced that offenders sentenced to life imprisonment before March 1, 1994, could be considered for parole after serving 15 years of their sentence.
“By the grace of God, I had already attained a diploma in Human Resources and was rehabilitating other prisoners. I did all that without any expectation of going home. In July 2013, I was released on day parole. I would sleep in prison and during the day go out, [I did this] for six months,” he says.
With the vision he had for Fear Free Life, he pushed the program at schools talking about the negative impact of crime, drugs and gangsterism. He invested in the program with funds received from family members. This led to quality assurance by the City Of Johannesburg to run the program across schools, workplaces and prisons in South Africa in 2014.
<blockquote>“Going to prison was for coming across my destiny; it was something that was meant to happen. My prison experience shaped the man that I am today,” he says.</blockquote>
Today, Fear Free Life employs ex-convicts to help clean Johannesburg streets, and have recently garnered city development projects. Khumalo also works with artists.
Men like him prove there can be a life beyond the prison walls.

hands of a prisoner on prison bars

Age No Bar

Hein Wagner throws himself into extreme adventure to boost the confidence of others living with blindness. His daring trysts have been across land, air, river and sea.

Hein Wagner, entrepreneur, global speaker and adventurer, has cycled up rocky mountains, jumped off flying planes, run on ice and negotiated Africa’s fiercest rivers.
He has successfully completed challenges such as the Absa Cape Epic, the Antarctica Marathon, the Two Oceans and New York Marathons, the Ironman and Cape Town Cycle Tour. He has also rafted down the rapids of the Zambezi River, and climbed the highest mountains of the Western Cape. Now 46, he has had more adrenaline-driven experiences than most.
And Wagner is blind.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-37335 alignleft" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo7-199x300.jpg" alt="" width="199" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo7-199x300.jpg 199w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo7-300x453.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo7-600x906.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo7.jpg 636w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px" />
He was born with a rare, inherited eye disorder called Leber Congenital Amaurosis resulting in vision loss at an early age. The doctors discovered it when Wagner was six months old.
When he was six years old, his parents made a tough decision – to send him away to a boarding school 100 kilometers away from home.
“It was a hard thing for me, I was just used to the family home – I could move around on my own, I could just get by on my own, I could sort myself out. My parents decided to send me away…To me, it was quite traumatic, I got lost. At home, I could find my way anywhere, the bathroom, kitchen and bedroom, it was comfortable,” says Wagner.
“As a small child, you kind of don’t understand why. Later, you realize the decision was harder for my parents to make; they had to send me away but it paid off. It was the ideal place for me to work with teachers qualified to educate blind kids, and also meet other blind children with similar challenges.”
School was a precious learning experience, but the hardest part was in his teenage years, especially on weekends.
“The sighted kids could make eye contact with people. Going into adolescent years, they made eye contact with the girls, and they could interact by just looking or just winking.”
Without that ability, says Wagner, it was like standing in the back of a queue. But he always looked for another perspective.
“It was all in your head because there’s other ways of doing it. You don’t have to see to have a successful relationship for that matter. But you feel like a misfit because of how society treats you; they think you can’t do this or do that, but that’s not true, the only thing that doesn’t work well is my eyes.”
He proved his physical prowess in every possible way.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-37336 size-full" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo5.jpg" alt="" width="949" height="749" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo5.jpg 949w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo5-300x237.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo5-600x474.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo5-768x606.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 949px) 100vw, 949px" />
In 1998, he was part of the Blind Cricket South Africa team that won the Blind Cricket World Cup that year.
By the time Wagner finished school, he started playing around with computers. Voice technology had just started to develop and a blind person could actually work on a computer. He was fascinated with computing and ended up working in Information Technology for 12 years, working his way up the career path. He did a number of computer courses including one stint for three years in London that equipped him well.
He managed teams in companies such as Thawte-Verisign, a tech firm founded by Mark Shuttleworth, the first African to travel to space as a tourist.
Wagner enjoyed the corporate life, and met the $50 million targets. In 2014, he quit – to pursue his passion for action beyond the boardroom.
“People wanted me to speak about my adventures because at the time I had done a few of the Cape-to-Rio yacht races.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2015/02/01/blind-not-will-farm/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: ‘Blind Or Not, I Will Farm’</a>
Wagner discovered his adventurous side as a teenager. He was up at the Table Mountain in Cape Town six times. People would never stop talking about the view and he wanted to experience it too. It was after his first hike – it took him six hours to get to the top – that he fell in love with nature.
“I felt some sense of achievement, and the other thing I realized on the way is that it was so much bigger than I imagined. You also have a sense that the top of the mountain is flat, but it’s not; it’s rocks,” he says. His view was different from everyone else’s and it was no less beautiful.
His adventurous streak led him from one exciting experience to another.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-37341 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo8-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="494" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo8-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo8-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo8-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo8-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/photo8.jpg 1654w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />
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“Things got a little bit more [hectic], I did the land-speed record. The first one was in 2005. I drove a Maserati at 269.2km/hour, beating the record, which was 269km/hour. Then a Belgium blind guy drove a Lamborghini at 308km/hour. So my navigator and I went back and did 322kms/hour on a runway in Upington with a [Mercedes-Benz] AMG 65 black. The record still stands,” he says.
Wagner also jumped off Victoria Falls, a 111-meter jump. He went into it without knowing how long the jump would be nor knowing what he was jumping towards.
“I got on to the bridge, met the guys and let the guys put stuff around my ankle. You can see the loop going up and down, but I don’t have that luxury. I had to trust them immediately. When you are blind, you have to shift your trust all the time, because you rely on people many times when you actually don’t know them. You observe and learn to trust quicker,” he says.
The reason Wagner is always hurling himself into extreme adventure, he says, is to lift the profile of people living with blindness. It is to push the boundaries and see how far the human spirit can go, but to also inspire.
<blockquote>“I’m blind, what’s your excuse,” he says.</blockquote>
Today, Wagner is a motivational speaker. People, companies and sports clubs were keen to hear him talk about his life.
“I realized people enjoy my sense of humor, the things I talk about. They started offering me money. I realized there may be an opportunity in this. Today, I have been running a successful business for the last 14 years, and speak all over the world.”
However, he had a rough start; the first three years were difficult. He had just quit and had no budget for marketing. He relied on presentations. His first talks were at schools, simply because young learners were brutally honest when it came to feedback.
Step by step, he grew, investing time and energy in his business. Besides South Africa, Wagner also speaks overseas.
Beyond his daring trysts across land, air, river and sea, Wagner’s greatest achievement is he accepted his condition, turning adversity into opportunity.

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Never Blind To Possibilities

September is celebrated as ‘heritage month’ in South Africa honoring history, tradition and culture through food, music, art and fashion.
Here, we deep-dive into the colorful world of African fabric and print, showcasing Aurelie Tshimbombo, born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and now based in Johannesburg as one of the city’s many entrepreneurs promoting African print.
“I fell in love with fabric, I fell in love with how clothes make a woman feel,” says Tshimbombo.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2014/08/01/designer-dreams-sweeping-floors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Designer Who Dreams of Sweeping Floors</a>
“Women feel empowered, they feel prettier, they feel braver, and they feel more unique if they wearing something that brings out the confidence in them. I found that whole process intriguing.”
Almost a decade ago, Tshimbombo’s epiphany was when she started making clothes for herself but couldn’t find anything in the market that reflected who she was.
“I am a short, curvy African woman,” she says.
Her label’s name is Afrinique Chic, which she says is a luxury lifestyle fashion brand for Africans and the rest of the world.

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The African Spin

Sixty two years ago, on August 9, 20,000 women of all races, classes and creed marched, singing and chanting, babies on their backs, to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa’s capital city, to deliver a petition to then Prime Minister J.G Strydom against the introduction of the apartheid pass laws.
This meant black women were not allowed in urban areas for more than 72 hours unless they possessed a pass with the holder’s details, including payment of taxes and permission to be in these urban areas. The march was led by the struggle stalwarts: Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Albertina Sisulu, Sophia Williams-De Bruyn and Rahima Moosa.
“I didn’t see much of Helen Joseph at the march, she was in front of the crowd. She was a big strong woman and she led the march with other strong women. They told us that women are holding passes and if we don’t demonstrate against [the government], we [too will one day end up] holding these passes,” recollects Ramnie Naidoo to FORBES AFRICA. She was only was 14 years old at the time, escorting her mother at the march.
Pictured here is Helen Joseph (1905-1992), founding member of the Federation of South African Women, and Rahima Moosa (1922-1993), union activist and member of the Transvaal Indian Congress, both co-leaders of the 1956 Women’s March.
They have been immortalized in the Long March To Freedom, a procession of 100 life-sized bronzes celebrating the pioneers of South Africa’s journey to democracy, at the Fountains Recreation Resort in the City of Tshwane, Gauteng, South Africa.

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Celebrating Women With Monumental Strength

Heroes exist in history, on celluloid, in pop culture or in these digital times, at the forefront of technology. These are the mighty who shine on the front pages of newspapers, as the paradigms of victory and virtue. But every day in public life, surrounding us are some of the real stars, the nameless, the faceless we don’t recognize or celebrate. In the pages that follow, we look at some of them, exploring the exemplary work they do, from the war zones to your neighborhood streets. They are not flawless, they are not infallible, but they are heroes.

<h3>Adeline Oliver, 67, nurse</h3>
<div id="attachment_36972" style="width: 693px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36972" class="wp-image-36972 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Adeline-Oliver-596-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="683" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Adeline-Oliver-596-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Adeline-Oliver-596-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Adeline-Oliver-596-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Adeline-Oliver-596-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Adeline-Oliver-596-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Adeline-Oliver-596.jpg 1365w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" />Adeline Oliver. Photo By Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
<blockquote>“We finally came to a clearing, where we are now crossing into Syria. The field coordinator said to me, ‘run when I say run’.”</blockquote>
Volunteers for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, focus on delivering emergency medical aid in areas of crisis.
Adeline Oliver, a South African, has been an Operation Theater nurse for the last 35 years.
She was 60 years old when she joined MSF. She had retired from an active nursing job, and didn’t know what she was going to do with her life.
One day, her daughter called and told her she had made an appointment on her behalf for an interview at MSF.
“I knew at the time that it’s what I would have liked to do, my life wasn’t over. I am healthy, and wanted to give back. I’ve got enough experience, skills and knowledge wouldn’t be knowledge if it was not shared,” says Oliver.
Little did she know that in just two weeks, she would be leaving the cosy comfort of her Johannesburg home and be on a flight to war-torn Afghanistan, where she would be for six months on her first assignment with MSF.
She recalls the country as very poor and the people exploited. Their homes had been bombed, they were living in shelters or the streets and sold every little thing they had.
She witnessed terrible fatalities during her stay there.
“A woman came with a pitch black foot and I questioned why she hadn’t come in earlier because the foot happened over a period of time, but later, when a family member related the story, I was ashamed. They were traveling through these horrible roads in the mountains, they encountered bandits on the way and the family members were killed, and the poor woman had been brought to hospital. She died two weeks later.”
Oliver managed to save some of the lives with her expertise.
Syria was her second assignment, when the civil war had just begun.
Her long journey to reach the MSF field hospital in Syria’s Idlib government took her on a midnight hike through forests and past the ruins of Aleppo. When she finally reached her destination it was just before sunrise. After two hours of sleep she joined the rest of the team to start working in the hospital MSF had set up inside a cave.
“In the cave were a fully-equipped operating room, and a fully-equipped emergency room. It’s a huge cave. Once it was closed it was just another hill”.
From this unusual location where Adeline and her team provided life-saving medical care for several months to people who needed it most – regardless of their political affiliation or social status. 
This was in a rebel area just outside Aleppo; the historic city had been completely destroyed.
Their first patient was a pregnant woman, injured in a bomb blast. Oliver managed to save her but her unborn child didn’t survive.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2018/06/26/no-cutting-corners-when-it-comes-to-business-for-these-women/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: No Cutting Corners When It Comes To Business For These Women</a>
“The baby took the hit and died in the woman’s womb. So we had to do an emergency caesarean section. Luckily, the cave was well-equipped and we could do life-saving operations,” she says.
Oliver has worked in challenging circumstances in South Sudan, South Africa (during the xenophobic attacks), in Afghanistan several times, and Syria, Turkey, Yemen, and most recently Iraq.
<h3>Monica Genya, 43, logistician</h3>
<div id="attachment_36973" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36973" class="wp-image-36973 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Monica-Genya-625-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="494" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Monica-Genya-625-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Monica-Genya-625-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Monica-Genya-625-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Monica-Genya-625-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Monica-Genya-625.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />Monica Genya. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla</div>
“The first thing I heard was machine gunfire…”
With all the traveling doctors and nurses at MSF do, someone has to be accountable for all the logistics; lives can’t be saved without the correct equipment or movement of people and goods.
Monica Genya has worked with MSF for 24 years around the world as a logistician. Straight after college, she joined the organization and wanted to make a difference.
“My job is to make sure the camps are working smoothly for our medical personnel. It means getting all the supplies necessary to put up out-patient departments so doctors can come in and see patients and dispense medication,” she explains.
The first place she worked in was Somalia, in a tiny port town called Kismayo, south of Mogadishu and closer to the Kenyan border, which was besieged. Theirs was the only hospital in the entire town because the country was at war.
She was just out of her teens at the time, assisting to source supplies in Kenya, making sure they got airlifted to Kismayo because it was quicker and safer.
“When I landed in Kismayo for the first time, the first thing I heard was machine gunfire…tadadadadada, tadadada. It was constant and I was scared witless,” she recalls.
She was terrified by the gunfire, and slept under the bed until she got used to the staccato sounds three days later.
She also had to get used to not sitting up straight at breakfast on the rooftop dining areas because she was afraid she would get hit by stray bullets.
Soon, Genya set up tents and medical equipment to save lives, forgetting her life could be in danger too.
“There was a time when the hospital was besieged in Kismayo by invading forces. We were forced to go into a bunker and lock ourselves in and hide. We could hear the invaders going from room to room asking where the doctors were. Eventually they gave up and walked out. At that point, you realize that things could be really bad if you were found. That was a profoundly scary moment,” she says.
But that was nothing compared to Sierra Leone during the Ebola crisis in 2014.
“If it’s a man with a gun, you might be able to plead, reason or negotiate. Probably not, but in your head you are thinking this is a person like me. But there is no negotiating with Ebola,” she says.
While Genya was in Sierra Leone, she lost two colleagues to Ebola; one was a medical doctor and the other a guard at a warehouse. Three more were infected but managed to receive treatment and survived.
Thousands contracted the virus across Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. As a logistician, she had to stay the longest to make sure everything that was needed was in place for both the medical staff and patients. Sadly, half the Ebola victims died but a quarter of the population survived due to the help of Doctors Without Borders, she says.
The cholera outbreak in Zambia was yet another project Genya successfully worked on.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/09/20/three-women-three-wives-one-true-story/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Three Women, Three Wives, One True Story</a>
“One of the many interesting things to know about cholera, besides the much-needed medical attention, is mainly the logistics intervention; it means we have to get a cholera camp up and running, as quickly as possible to start receiving patients,” she says.
It called for a great amount of experience, and quick action. Cholera kits had to be readily available, as the disease can kill in 48 hours.
“So we have to be there as quickly as possible to minimize the death toll and we have to do it in 48 hours. Within that time frame, we are able to receive medical personnel and start receiving patients. Our job is to make sure that whatever you need is where you need it when you need it, but if what you need is not where you need it when you need it, then lives are lost. There is no point in having a doctor there if there are no IV fluids,” says Genya, proving that you don’t have to be a medical doctor to save lives.
<h3>Nthabiseng Mogale, 25, paramedic</h3>
<div id="attachment_36974" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36974" class="wp-image-36974 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Nthabiseng-Mogale-163-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="494" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Nthabiseng-Mogale-163-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Nthabiseng-Mogale-163-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Nthabiseng-Mogale-163-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Nthabiseng-Mogale-163-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Nthabiseng-Mogale-163.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />Nthabiseng Mogale. Photo by Motlabanna Monnakgotla.</div>
<blockquote>“Emotionally, you get attached even though you don’t know the person.”</blockquote>
Nthabiseng Mogale qualified as a professional medic in 2014 in Johannesburg. She has since saved countless lives working out of an emergency room on wheels.
But even today, she admits to being nervous every time she gets a call out.
“You don’t know what kind of an accident you are going to find. You get to an accident and someone has a broken leg, or a scratch, some of them are horrible and traumatic. Emotionally, you get attached even though you don’t know the person. This job is difficult, but it’s also lovely because you get to save lives.”
She recalls one morning when she received a call about a seven-year-old, who was involved in an accident and suffered brain injury. The child had been sleeping since the night before, and didn’t wake up the following morning.
“Calls about children are more emotional than any others. That little, tiny body lying there, dead, not breathing, not responding, is not nice, it’s never nice actually,” says Mogale, who is a young mother herself.
Recently, she received another call, this time from Midrand, north of Johannesburg, at around 1PM. It was an old man who had low sugar levels and a history of heart failure; he also had high blood pressure and hypertension. On the day, he was not responding.
She checked the vitals – blood pressure, heart rate and sugar. The sugar was low, he had a variant heart rhythm and there was nothing they could do about it.
“In my scope of practice, you give sugar to that kind of person; if you give a drip, that water will hydrate the body, you give oxygen, the blood flows and it will bring color back. So I gave him sugar, he woke up, the drip hydrated him, he woke up and he started coughing, I asked him how he was and he said ‘I am not well but I am awake’.” She had saved his life.
The gratitude from her patients is what keeps Mogale going.
“Just a thank you is more than enough,” she says.
These are everyday heroes, fearless and loyal to the call of duty.

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The Heroes Among Us

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Celebrating Mandela From Where It All Began; Soweto

The Wonders of Rock Art: Lascaux Cave and Africa exhibition is a recreation of the world-renowned Lascaux caves in southwestern France where an estimated 17 000 years ago, humans painted wild animals on the rocks of the caves. For the first time in Africa, the exhibition replicates these outstanding paleolithic masterpieces and the cave itself.
The Nave, seen here, is the exact replica of a chamber or cavern 66 feet long and 23 feet high. In this picture, a viewer peeps into the artwork.
There couldn’t have been a better setting for this exhibition than South Africa, with its own iconic prehistoric art, and famed for its Cradle of Humankind site and the deep, dark Sterkfontein caves in Maropeng.
The exhibition is on until October 1 at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Newtown, Johannesburg, South Africa.
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Big Shots is a new section in FORBES AFRICA that captures offbeat moments in business, politics, art and life, using a single image to tell the story with a short blurb. These images throb with life and color.

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Cave Art From 17,000 Years Ago

It’s not often I find myself driving past the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum in Orlando West, in Soweto, an urban township in Johannesburg.
But come June every year, I inevitably steer my car to the site, mentally revisiting the carnage that happened here in 1976; the student protest and the police firing that led to an iconic photograph the world came to associate with South Africa’s brutal apartheid regime.
Two years ago, one of my assignments with FORBES AFRICA was to pursue a story on the ‘Soweto Uprising’. Thankfully, the museum gave me three vital leads to reconstruct the events of June 16, a day etched in blood in South African history.
It was a Tuesday when I met my first contact, Oupa Moloto, who then was a student at the Morris Isaacson High School in Soweto where it all started.
“On the day of the event, the school started a little earlier; the mood was different, the students were excited but the teachers couldn’t pick it up,” recalled Moloto of the first stirrings of the protest against the mandatory use of Afrikaans as a language of instruction in black secondary schools.
After the interview, I visited the school and walking around, could sense around me the nervous excitement of the students like it was 42 years ago. I could hear their voices, singing and chanting as we stood where the last assembly was held, before the shots were fired at them.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2018/06/04/soweto-burning-june-16-remembered/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Soweto Burning: June 16 Remembered</a>
I photographed Moloto at their then assembly point and his face was a picture of sorrow. The school has been renovated since but in the older building, are still some vestiges of that time – broken windows and furniture.
A few weeks later, I met with Barney Mokgatle at his home in Alexandra, another township. He was one of the students who went into exile after the tragic march.
“The police were hunting for us, we could not sleep in one place for two nights because there were people selling us out,” said Mokgatle.
Mokgatle was the right hand man to Tsietsi Mashinini who led the march and later died in exile. 
He talked me through every detail; he also said Pieterson was not the first student shot at the march.
Perhaps more intriguing was his recounting of their escape and journey to Botswana through the bushes without fear of the wilderness, with their other friend Selby Semela.
He started singing, the masculine man had a voice of the angels; it was remarkable. As soon as the humming started, I almost shed a tear, I could feel their struggle and strength as they dodged bullets and teargas in the Soweto streets wearing blazers and ties, some running with missing shoes.
But at that moment, they were crossing serene bushes unaware of the hungry beasts around them lurking in the dark all the way to the borders of Botswana.
A few days later, we met again for a shoot where a statue of his friend Mashinini was erected not far from the Morris Isaacson school. He didn’t come to Soweto often but when he saw the statue, he paused, staring at it. He finally turned and we continued walking to a wall where he showed me a collage of his two friends and himself.
The story wouldn’t be complete without speaking to the ‘girl’ in the iconic photograph of Pieterson taken by Sam Nzima. Antoinette Pieterson, the older sister, who is 58 today.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/sometime-in-africa/2017/04/01/soweto-boy-afrikaner-haven/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: A Soweto Boy In An Afrikaner Haven</a>
“I saw Mbuyisa [Makhubu, the boy carrying Pieterson in the famous photograph] coming from nowhere; I didn’t know him at the time. He was running towards me, he passed me. I saw he was carrying a person and I could recognize Pieterson’s shoe, I ran with him,” she recounted.
Today, as I walk the streets of Orlando, I think of the privilege I enjoyed of choosing between either isiZulu or Afrikaans as a second language in school.
Thanks to the class of 1976, we had the freedom.

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The Class Of 1976 – Soweto Uprising

Khothatso Laurence Tsotetsi’s office in South Africa’s capital city Pretoria, is a profusion of pink – a beaded pink flamingo stands tall on his desk that’s draped in a pink table cloth; also here are grey couches with pink patterns and a pink mat adorning the floor.
His spacious studio with multiple rooms is just the setting for our photoshoot and interview.
Millennial fashion designer Tsotetsi has made a name for himself in South Africa’s fashion industry with his sophisticated, elegant pieces for women particular about their look, and has had his creations showcased at a number of fashion weeks.
Born in Soweto, a township in the southwest of Johannesburg, in 1988, just before the apartheid era ended in South Africa, Tsotetsi moved around a lot as a child.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2018/05/07/from-football-to-fashion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: From Football To Fashion</a>
“My father was a politician, that’s why we moved from one place to another. We moved from Soweto to the Free State [a province in South Africa]; we lived in the Vaal for some time until I eventually moved to Pretoria in 2009, and since then I’ve been practicing from here.”
As a young boy, he says, his behaviour was peculiar compared to other boys his age. Where they played football, he played with fabric.
He was interested in dress designing and started with some needlework; all this evolved in high school when he figured out that designing was what he wanted to pursue. In tertiary school, Tsotetsi started showcasing at fashion weeks every season.
After graduating with a BTech degree in 2012, and with a National Diploma in Fashion in 2013 from the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), he lectured on construction, patterns and creative design at TUT for a few years.
By then, he was already involved in the eponymous business he had started in 2012. Tsotetsi KL, his brand, was doing well.
“2012 was when I got my big break at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Johannesburg when African Fashion International (AFI) brought Alek Wek to walk for my show; from there, I did Black Fashion Week Paris,” he recalls.
This meant hard work, sacrifices and the relentless pursuit of his passion.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2016/08/01/sweet-fashionable-life-boss/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Sweet and Fashionable Life Of Being Your Own Boss</a>
As an assistant, Tsotetsi packed scraps of fabric for South African fashion mogul Clive Rundle for six weeks, coordinating scraps by color and fabric. Tsotetsi knows it as Rundle’s aesthetic. Rundle has sold womenswear for decades and showcased his work on ramps across the world.
“I taught art and design at a high school in the Vaal for a month and on the weekends, I would work at Clive Rundle’s; after that month, I worked permanently every day at his Johannesburg studio in the [central] business district. That’s when I started helping with the clothing and the shows, and then I worked with David Tlale in 2014 under a mentorship program, the AFI Next Generation,” says Tsotetsi.
The young designer had to shadow famed South African designer Tlale for three months before Tlale’s first New York Fashion Week show.
From both designers, Tsotetsi learned a lot and infused it with his own method, understanding the business side of fashion and not just the creative aspects. He developed a clientele base and streamlined his business into what it is today.
<div id="attachment_36562" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36562" class="wp-image-36562 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-158-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-158-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-158-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-158-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-158-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-158.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Tsotetsi in his spacious offices with model, Fath Mncube. Photograph by Motlabana Monnakgotla</div>
Over the years, he has learned a great deal and gained a lot of experience in the industry, showcasing his creations yet constantly questioning himself about what is more important: money, fame or social media likes.
“Still, why showcase,” he asks.
“As soon as it’s a company, it’s an entity with different principles: human resources, finance, graphics, photography and all of that, but as a small business, you cannot afford those services, you have to step in as the owner and play those different roles, ask for favors, manipulate people, lie, and do all of those things. So for you to be able to maintain the business, you need to be making money and paying staff. Those are the dynamics that have been in place from 2014 until 2018.”
In the eyes of the young creative designer, growth meant making money.
Among many other rich and famous names, Tsotetsi has dressed the likes of Hulisani Ravele, a radio personality and former YoTV presenter; Precious Moloi-Motsepe, a fashion entrepreneur and philanthropist, who runs the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week; and Rorisang Thandekiso, a South African actress, presenter and musician.
“I know Khothatso from high school, so he’s been making me stuff since but my real first was my first SAMAs [South African Music Awards] in 2010, it was amazing and futuristic. This year, I’m at the SAMAs in June doing the red carpet and presenting an award; he’ll be dressing me for both. We did the SAFTAs [South African Film and Television Awards] together. That dress took everybody by storm, and everybody absolutely loved it. It was just beautiful to look at people respond to it,” says Thandekiso.
Tsotetsi KL caters for a market that is distinctively chic and sophisticated.
“It is women that are of a peculiar kind who want to portray classiness in an elegant way. They want to stand out, they have exaggerated style and thoughts and they are one in zero,” says Tsotetsi.
The brand does bespoke and high-end garments and is currently working with Luminance, a fashion and lifestyle concept store present in the upscale Hyde Park Corner mall in north Johannesburg.
<div id="attachment_36563" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36563" class="size-medium wp-image-36563" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-101-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-101-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-101-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-101-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-101-768x1151.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-101-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-101.jpg 1366w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Faith Mncube of Fabulousdotcom Models. Photograph by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
The garments seen in the photos are from the 2014 fashion weeks from different seasons. Tsotetsi’s favorite is a ruffle dress.
“It was a highly publicised look from the SAMAs’ [edition] 21. It was a dress that Kelly Khumalo [South African singer, actress and dancer] wore and it was one of its kind at the time; it was bigger than what it is in the image. It was 180 meters before it was tailored. It is one iconic look that we photographed for the feature,” he says.
Tsotetsi KL will be turning six years old in August and is slated to have a spectacular fashion show for Women’s Month, observed in South Africa every year that month. Tsotetsi employs four permanent staff and three interns. They are all hard at work in his studio preparing the next line.
For the lad from Soweto obsessed with needlework, he has his work cut out for him.

Tsotetsi-920

From Packing Scrap To Dressing Up Alek Wek

How do you make science fun? Just ask 36-year-old vodka entrepreneur Sibusiso Sibisi.
With an unquestionable flair for organizing events and parties – most of them in his backyard growing up – instead of studying event management, he went on to study analytical chemistry for his BSc degree. He then sanguinely mixed the two.
Today, he makes vodka that gets consumed at parties country-wide in South Africa.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2014/10/01/the-iron-lady-of-beer/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Iron Lady Of Beer</a> 
Born and bred in Kagiso, a township not far from Krugersdorp, a mining town in the south of Johannesburg, South Africa, Sibisi launched his own brand, Distinkt Vodka, in 2016.
Keen to hear his story, I head to Kagiso to meet him. It takes me 30 minutes to locate his address, using maps on my phone and eventually realizing the need to update the GPS in my car, an exercise that would have saved me a lot of time and petrol.
Outside his home, a black delivery van is parked next to his swanky MINI Cooper. Sibisi, equally sleek, in a suit, emerges, welcomes me inside, and leading me to a bar in his garage, offers a shot of his Distinkt Vodka.
Sampling it with a dash of lemon and soda, it’s a good taste of the interview that is to follow.
Sibisi grew up in a large household with several family members. He didn’t have a privileged upbringing; the first time he got to sleep in his own bed was when he was 18 years old, after he moved with his mother to a new house in the same area within Kagiso.
After high school, he pursued a national diploma in analytical chemistry at the University of Johannesburg, a path he chose goaded on by college career counsellors who thought he had the right analytical abilities.
“To be honest, I hated analytical chemistry because it did not go with who I was,” says Sibisi.
His heart was elsewhere.
As a student, Sibisi enjoyed organizing and hosting events, in the same house I meet him for this interview. He was popular for his, although-humble, backyard parties and for simply, having fun.
When he told people he was studying chemistry, it always surprised them.
But as he pursued his studies, he realized he actually liked analytical chemistry; studying how things came to be, such as vodka or even a bar of soap.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2015/08/01/farmworker-multi-millionaire/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: From Farmworker To Multi millionaire</a>
But Sibisi still struggled to acquire the diploma, dropping out after four years, as he had lost interest and wasn’t sure if he really did want to study. He called his mother and told her he wanted to work instead. But that too was to be short-lived.
“I started working at a call center for a bank. [But] I realized I needed to graduate because it wasn’t nice saying the same things all day; that’s how I went back and graduated in 2008,” he says.
Soon after graduating, he worked as a laboratory technician, then supervisor and manager, going through all the motions of working in a lab. Sibisi worked hard and it was recognized by his employers.
“A lab is a place where you get to talk to yourself a lot because it is not active and vibrant like many industries. You are on your own and have to focus,” he says.
“All this time, I was thinking I had acquired so much knowledge in university, I’m acquiring knowledge now in the field, I know how most of these things come about. [But] what am I doing about it? That is how I went into the lab and started experimenting.”
This he accomplished, using the Chemin incubator program labs at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.
He looked into the alcohol industry, researched the volume of alcohol consumed by people, especially the youth, on weekends, and the sales potential of such an opportunity.
He also realized that this could be a revenue-spinner for South Africa, a major importer of liquor.
Sibisi saw an opportunity in the vodka market and knew he had to target his own country, he says pointing his fingers to the ground.
The first beverage he developed was a beer prototype, then a brandy prototype, followed by a gin prototype. He developed the first vodka prototype in 2012 and decided on vodka, adding that it is one of the few quality products in the market.
“The liquor market is very saturated, even worse with the vodka market because there are many ways to make vodka, but there’s very few ways to make good vodka,” laughs Sibisi.
His knowledge of chemistry more than came in handy.
<div id="attachment_36010" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36010" class="wp-image-36010 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vodka-182-1024x682.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="682" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vodka-182-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vodka-182-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vodka-182-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vodka-182-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vodka-182.jpg 1241w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Sibusiso Sibisi. Photograph by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
Distinkt is made using grain and potatoes, among other things. Sibisi buys the potatoes from a farmer in the North West province of South Africa, after which he mashes them, and then boils them at high temperatures. The liquid is strained from the potatoes, and fermented.
Soon after the fermentation process, it is distilled and filtered three times for purity. He takes what’s left of it, and tastes the alcohol content. If it is high, he uses purified water to dilute the alcohol, if it is low, it is redistilled to have the exact desired concentration of alcohol. It is then tested again. If there is an anomaly, the process is repeated before the vodka is bottled and packaged.
“This proudly South African vodka has reached most of Gauteng and other big towns in other provinces [in the country] and is selling at a faster rate than it was before,” beams Sibisi.
“We are currently in a few Pick n Pay liquor outlets and Ultra liquors across South Africa and in most township bottle stores, pubs and clubs.”
Distinkt is currently produced in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal and a plant in Germiston in Johannesburg.
I had downed a shot of vodka and had to drive back to the office, with the GPS for company. How I wished the interview had been on a Friday afternoon.

Vodka-188

The Party Animal In The Lab

About 81 kilometers from Africa’s richest square mile and the concrete jungle that is Sandton, we are on a gravel road that stretches as far as the eyes can see.
It’s a Wednesday afternoon and around us, on this stretch in the tiny town of Meyerton in South Africa, is nothing but dry earth and rolling vistas, until we come upon a signpost that says Rooijakkals Street – it’s an indication we are not lost.
Up further on the rocky road, in the distance, we see a horse. It’s the first tell-tale sign of our destination.
Past an open gate and another electric wired-fence with a gate, we approach the single-storied home of Scott Borland, an entrepreneur and professional farrier, in other words, a smith who shoes horses.
At the door, a lady, his wife, dressed in black, emerges, followed by at least a dozen dogs.
But we are here for the horses.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/homepage/2018/04/10/south-african-horse-industry-potential-billion-rand-market/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The South African Horse Industry: A Potential Billion Rand Market</a>
Borland welcomes us – as we gingerly sidestep the scary canines – and shows us to the four horses in his stable. He says he has been looking after them ever since his children went overseas leaving them in his care.
Borland has been working from home for the last 15 to 20 years, he tries to recall, as we share a bench outside the stable not far from his work truck on the farm.
The gentle afternoon breeze fans his memories.
In 1981, he started his apprenticeship at the Newmarket Farrier School in Alberton, south of Johannesburg. The school shut down 15 years ago because there was suddenly a glut of farriers in the market and not enough jobs.
“I have been around horses all my life,” says Borland, “when I left school, it was a natural progression to move on to the horse industry and that’s how I took up my apprenticeship.”
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<div id="attachment_35947" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35947" class="wp-image-35947 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Horseshoes-892-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Horseshoes-892-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Horseshoes-892-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Horseshoes-892-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Horseshoes-892-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Horseshoes-892.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Borland demonstrates the process of shoeing a horse. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
Horseshoes are metal-fabricated products attached to horse hooves to prevent hoof wear and injuries to the foot. The shoes keep the horses balanced and their feet maintained.
Professional farriers need to be skilled, so Borland has also trained apprentices, been on the South African farrier team representing the country in Canada, and has also shoed horses in Scotland, Turkey and America.
“Horseshoes are probably one of the things that changed the history of the planet,” Borland says grandly, going back in time to when horses were the prime mode of transport.
“There was a man called Henry Burden. He was a Scotsman who moved to New York before the start of the American Civil War, he was an engineer and developed the first machine to mass produce horseshoes in 1835. That machine can produce a shoe per second,” says Borland, with an intent look in his eyes.
He then references the Boer War in South Africa from 1899 to 1902. The reason the Boers used to blow up trains or hijack them were to steal horseshoes from the British, he says.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/06/04/ready-to-race/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Ready To Race</a>
“The horse industry had about 300 registered farriers in South Africa and a number of unregistered ones as well,” says Borland.
Today, it’s a specialized skill.
Horseshoes are made of different metals: steel – for work, aluminium – for performance, and plastic – for negotiating slippery surfaces.
Borland’s customers are mainly private clients who own horses for both pleasure riding and competition. He also shoes the horses used by the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) who have been his clients for the last 25 years.
Is it a lucrative profession to be in, I ask.
“A partner and I have recently started a horseshoe manufacturing plant on this very farm and it’s the only horseshoe manufacturing in the southern hemisphere; prior to that, all horseshoes were imported, so there isn’t really any revenue for the country out of it,” offers Borland; the only other countries producing horseshoes are India, China and Europe.
Borland and his partner started their business, Mustang Horse Shoes, in 2013, producing horseshoes locally and employing three people. They had to mostly learn by trial and error as there was no existing frame of reference for them in South Africa.
A fact they are proud of about the business is that they also sell their products in the coal yards based in the townships. This is where horses are used to pull carriages filled with coal, going street to street selling or delivering it.
<div id="attachment_35948" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35948" class="size-medium wp-image-35948" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Horseshoes-852-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Horseshoes-852-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Horseshoes-852-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Horseshoes-852-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Horseshoes-852-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Horseshoes-852.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />In early times, Horseshoes were initially cast from iron and bronze, were synonymous with good fortune, and even used as talismans. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
“Ninety percent of those shoes are our shoes. We make a very good shoe for their type of work. It’s a hard shoe and provides a lot of grip; most of these horses work on tar,” says Borland.
Mustang Horse Shoes uses rolled mild steel, produces its own plastic and will be using aluminium for its horseshoes.
The company services about 400 horses a month and makes a little over $8,000. The prices for shoeing horses range from $50 to $400 depending on the area and the type of horses they visit. Their business model is a mobile workshop, as they travel to the clients.
“We try to keep our traveling distance down to an 80km radius every day; we probably do 20 horses a day, depending on how far we are traveling,” says Borland.
I have never seen the process of shoeing a horse, except in the American cowboy movies I watched as a youngster, but Borland was surely able to throw more light on his unusual skill.
But now, each time I hear the clip-clop sounds of the JMPD horses, I know them to be of the horseshoes made by a humble farrier on a farm far from the sights and sounds of Johannesburg.
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Horseshoes-899

The farrier who shoes horses for the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department

As soon as I heard of my aunt’s death, I knew straight away that I had to make a plan to fill my petrol tank and attend the funeral. I hadn’t seen her in months and felt bad about not getting her the mobile phone I had promised her months earlier. Guilt was flowing through my body with the blood pumped by my hurting heart.
Back to the tank issue – I was broke and could barely afford to get enough petrol to drive 175kms to Ledig, in the North West province. After fetching my uncle in Midrand, north of Johannesburg, and with just a 1.5-liter bottle of Valpre water in the car, we began our journey.
Fifty kilometers into our trip, we drove through Hartbeespoort, a scenic holiday spot in the North West known for its dam. We were stunned to see the narrow bridge in the area; it was like being in a different country for the first time, looking at everything with a new eye. It looked like one of those bridges from the movies depicting ancient Europe. It was beautiful.
We didn’t have time to stop and take pictures; it was 6:15PM and we didn’t want to drive in the rain, especially as it was getting dark.
After driving past the Sun City resort, we knew we had arrived. Far from home, our Tswana dialect wouldn’t go unnoticed by locals; they would know we were from Johannesburg.
At Ledig, we were greeted by three men who were expecting us. I was interested in learning more about the guy wearing the white Marikana mine overall with an X marked at the back. He was loud and funny, but also useful. He helped carry the chairs and tables from the van to the house.
The only thing I found out about the guy is his age, his jokes and that he is known in the area for his pantsula (a culture originating from black townships during apartheid) dress sense. He also wants to go to Johannesburg; a common desire among many youths in the area.
On Saturday, the day of the funeral, I couldn’t hear a word at the service. What was strange was seeing people waiting at the graveyard for the burial. Even stranger, men were not allowed into the graveyard if they weren’t wearing a jacket; to be fair my parents had warned me about that.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/07/10/pain-business-death/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Pain Of The Business Of Death</a>
At most black funerals, there is a culture that has evolved over the last couple of years where music is played and alcohol is consumed after the burial. It is called ‘after tears’ and is done as a celebration of life for the deceased.
This ‘after tears’ ceremony in the rural area of Ledig was no different from the one we have in the townships, where I live.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2018/03/09/slice-africa-durban/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: A Slice Of Africa In Durban</a>
It is now Sunday morning and I have just enough petrol to get us back home to Soweto. It wasn’t the most pleasant drive back to Johannesburg because we had nothing to nibble on, nor drink. Just a dry mouth, a hangover, and a dirty car.
Finally, we get home. I freshen up while my uncle heads to bed. I was tired but felt it was important to go to church with a friend after what was a sad weekend.
I never heard the sermon – I was too tired. Instead I took my shoes and socks off, rested in the car and passed out. I was woken by a knock on the window; my friend told me I embarrassed her because people saw me sleeping in the car outside church.
I didn’t care – I had rested and was officially back in Johannesburg.

SIA-795

The Sad Road Trip On An Empty Wallet

Born in Tanzania, living in South Africa, and dressing the world, Anissa Mpungwe, is difficult to pin down.
In the end, we manage to do it online.
I look for her on Google Maps, and set out to seek her home address, with nothing but the online search tool. I travel with FORBES WOMAN AFRICA’s layout artist Lucy Nkosi. Luckily for us, just outside her home, which we eventually locate, we bump into one of Mpungwe’s two sisters, a student of architecture, leaving for her classes.
She helps us get in touch with the designer and set up an appointment with her at her Kyalami studio in Midrand, north of Johannesburg.
Around Mpungwe is a melange of color and couture, as she shares her story.
<div id="attachment_35909" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35909" class="wp-image-35909 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2691-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2691-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2691-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2691-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2691-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2691.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Anissa Mpungwe. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
Mpungwe has been in South Africa since she was 10, attending junior school, high school and university in the Rainbow Nation. Until the age of 19, she was just another foreigner in South Africa. 
But her career took off after that.
“After graduating in South Africa, getting my degree in fashion and marketing, I went to do my post- graduation in London. They have a good network there, so you get to work with different spaces and [get enough] work experience for you to know what you want to do; and I didn’t know which part of the fashion industry I wanted to be in. So I had to do all those different [types of] work experiences to know I definitely didn’t want to work for a magazine, [and] definitely not in a factory,” says Mpungwe.
Her career kick-started in South Africa in 2008 after winning the Elle New Talent competition, when she had the opportunity to work with fashion retailer Mr Price (MRP). Thereafter, she showcased her creations at fashion weeks in South Africa; however the biggest jump was in 2010 when she showcased at the prestigious New York Fashion Week in the United States.
“For me, it was an odd jump,” she says.
From being a student overseas, coming back home to South Africa trying to figure out where her career was going, to winning a competition, working with MRP to have her range out and then off to another country representing her home country, Tanzania.
That was in 2010 in New York City that she believes was the year that launched her career and the Loin Cloth &amp; Ashes brand.
Her first store opened in 2012 in Maboneng Precinct, a trendy art hub outside Johannesburg’s Central Business District.
Visitors to her store have included international musicians such as Swedish singer-songwriter Yukimi Nagano from Little Dragon, and American singer-songwriter Amel Larrieux.
She has over the years also had the opportunity to dress American singer-model-actress Solange Knowles for the cover of Elle as well as local South African stars such as Lira, Anele Mdoda, Bridget Masinga, and Simphiwe Dana amongst a slew of other celebrities.
In 2013, Mpungwe won Emerging Designer of the Year Africa awarded by African Fashion International.
She worked with MRP producing ranges reaching countries from Nigeria to Namibia, Botswana and stores across South Africa.
Mpungwe was also chosen to gift one of her designs to former American First Lady Michelle Obama during her visit to South Africa in 2015.
<div id="attachment_35910" style="width: 693px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35910" class="wp-image-35910 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2450-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="683" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2450-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2450-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2450-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2450-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2450-768x1151.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2450.jpg 1366w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" />Mpungwe dresses a model with one of her designs. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
“That for me was a very proud moment because of who she is, how she operates as a female. I [received] a little letter from her to frame to put next to the accolades. As much as those things excite me, to be honest with you, I think it is the everyday people that make me feel good about what I do,” she says.
Over the last few years, she has worked with corporate brands such as Maserati, Converse and Nestle among others.
Mpungwe operates out of two studios in South Africa and one in Tanzania employing 17 people.
“It has been great, a good learning curve. I’ve learned a lot, in such a short period. I’ve learned the business of fashion and the construction of clothing, the product itself,” says J K Khoza, one of her fashion interns.
Mpungwe is now sharing her experiences and showcasing her creations in the hope of seeing more young Africans traverse the globe spreading the beauty and bounties of African fashion.

Author: Motlabana Monnakgotla

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA